1944 Pattern Jungle Boots

[Peter Laidler]

They were our everyday issue boots for range work and training for all the time I was in the Far East. Not very long lasting but comfortable and leech-proof. The good thing was that they got wet and dried very quickly as you were wearing them. Ours had looooong laces. I seem to recall that while they were used in early Vietnam, they were replaced with our first issues of Boots, Combat, with a steel (or alloy) sandwich in the sole. Unlike the lightweight jungle boots that were the norm in Malaya. I never saw a pair after I returned to the UK.

They were pretty much an 'expense' item. You wore them out or ripped them or whatever and the QM just gave you another pair. On any sort of operation the life expectancy was probably a week - if that. They always came with air drops too and the tribesmen in the hill forts all had them as did the Malay Police. In fact, in the updated Sterling book, there's a photo of a couple of Malayan Policemen in Sungei Siput North wearing them! The REAL irony was that they were (or ours seemed to be...) made by BATA shoes who were a czech owned company. So in effect, we were paying the Czechs, a comecon country to supply us - to fight the communist bandits or certainly keep them under some sort of control in the North.., Grik, Kroh*, Sungei Siput, Alor Star are villages etched in my memory somewhere.

Nice to see them again
* spoke to a Chinese/Malay lady on holiday here a few weeks ago from..... Kroh!

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[browningautorifle]

Boots, Combat, with a steel (or alloy) sandwich in the sole.

I had a set of those too...way back.